


Little Things

by Kaiyou



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 2nd person POV, Kenma POV, Loose/Stream of Consciousness, M/M, Tokyo OT4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5677600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiyou/pseuds/Kaiyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You thought you had everything figured out. Kuroo was your best friend, Volleyball made sense, the world worked just fine.</p><p>Then Kuroo met Bokuto, and everything started to come apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Things

It’s the little things that get you.

With Kuroo it comes as naturally as breathing. He’s always been there, pulling you to his pace, pushing you to be the person he believes you can be. He’s always watching over you. Even if you wander off you know he’ll come find you, because there’s a string tied between your soul and his that will never break. 

Things changed when he pulled you onto the team. People listened to you. People let you be yourself. There wasn’t the push to be normal, to look at other people and entertain them, give them things you weren’t comfortable giving. The third years were annoying, but Kuroo was there, and for the first time in your life you had more than just Kuroo at your back.

Then came training, and Bokuto.

For the first time, you were aware of Kuroo consciously looking at someone else. The two were more than just rivals. They fell together, laughed and played together, pulled jokes you wouldn’t even begin to know how to make. 

It was scary. 

So you pulled away. Kuroo was fine. You had your games, you put off his invitations to practice more firmly and he let you. He let you go. Not all the way of course, but he wasn’t pulling you back in the same way he used to. In the past, his will had seemed like this overwhelming force that tied you to him. It was comfortable, not constraining, and then... he let you go.

It was terrifying.

You couldn’t be angry with him though, because you’re the one who told him no.

And he was happy. You could hear the laughter from where you sat outside, playing some stupid game that would just be followed by another game, things to pull your mind and hands away from the ever present thoughts that swirled around in your head. They were happy together. You knew that too, saw the way they nudged against each other and laughed with their heads close to each other in darkened corners. It was never obvious. Not to anyone else. But you were always watching, and you knew people. Knew at least the outlines of this mystery that everyone else called love.

You couldn’t be angry though. Especially couldn’t be angry with Bokuto. Bokuto was too oblivious, too pure. He should have been overwhelming, really. He was so loud and coarse sometimes, pulling out a crudeness in Kuroo that he never showed with you. Somehow, though, it crossed over the line from overwhelming to comforting, and you didn’t even know how. 

Unclassifiable emotions swirled in you. You could call it jealousy but if so, who were you jealous of? Bokuto, for taking your place beside Kuroo, the place you gave up? Kuroo, who held hands with the boy with the too-loud voice and crazy hair that brought color to the world? It was far too confusing. 

In the midst of this storm, someone was watching you.

He was calm. He wasn’t flashy, or messy, or loud. You barely even noticed at first, and he was there with you in so many moments that it took you a while to notice how constant a presence he’d become. It started out small. Questions about serving, about your game. Sometimes he just sat near you, doing his own thing. It was never intrusive. 

It was peaceful.

His hands were long and slender and you could watch him as he motioned, as he held his fingers just the way he would to catch and toss the ball. It was a whim that made you ask him to move your hands to a certain grip. You knew how to do it already, but you still asked, just for an excuse to feel those fingers touching you. You thought he probably knew it was an excuse, but he didn’t call you on it. He just crossed the boundary between his skin and yours, and it was natural. No, it was good.

Akaashi.

It was other touches after that moment, together with him on mats in the darkened storage room of the gym. Touches and kisses and breathless heartbeats and it was new. It was scary but he didn’t ask you for too much, let you say no without having to use the word. It was good. He was beautiful. He let you leave first, sneak out, brush your lips with your fingers and wonder if your first kiss should’ve been Kuroo’s like everything else.

Then you saw him. 

He was waiting for you. For the first time in years, you couldn’t read the look on his face. He was your best friend. He was your heart. 

For the first time you realized, really realized, and it terrified you.

You tried to move past him and he caught you and pulled you back toward him. It hurt. Only for a second. You felt him move his face to your shoulder and inhale. He held on, held too tight, and then you pulled away and he let go like he realized what he’d done. You curled up alone in your futon that night, and your heart hurt far worse than your shoulders where he’d gripped you. 

You hadn’t been alone, really alone, for years.

You wanted to ignore everyone the next day. Kuroo avoided you. Akaashi gave you space. Your other teammates knew something was wrong but didn’t know what, couldn’t read you well enough to know the real difference between your normal aloofness and this mood.

At lunch you wandered off by yourself, grabbing an apple and intending to do nothing but eat that and play your game for the break. Someone else had another idea, though.

Bokuto wasn’t the last person you wanted to see. He just wasn’t the first you would’ve thought of, if asked who would follow you out to the tree at the end of the field. Bokuto was good at surprises, though.

Good at bringing extra food and encouraging you to eat it. Good at just sitting next to you, not asking you talk, sharing anecdotes and jokes and letting you be silent. You didn’t mind that he sat too close, either. It grounded you. There were gentle touches intermixed with conversation and it was terrifying in a new way, because it didn’t bother you. 

Touches almost always bothered you, except for touches from Kuroo. But he’d been touching you for years.

Most of the time touches were like people trying to pull you out of your skin, or push themselves in. It was like someone speaking a foreign language to you and expecting you to respond in kind. Kuroo spoke your language, and now, over the course of a few days, Akaashi had learned to speak it. Bokuto didn’t even have to learn, he just knew.

Bokuto touched you like you were a cat, sliding his fingers up the back of your hair and massaging your scalp, chasing away the edges of a headache you didn’t even know had been starting. It was different from the innocent touches that you and Kuroo had shared, though there was nothing but innocence in Bokuto’s voice as he continued to speak. 

Maybe it was something other than innocent only in your own mind. That made you curl up more, wanting to hide the desires inside. It was a craving for touch like you’d never had, but it didn’t make sense. All the rules you knew said - well.

They said that you shouldn’t want this touch from another guy. Those rules were old, though, you knew.

But even then, even the new rules said you should only want touch like this from one person, or else -

You didn’t want to think about the or else. It made you sick. Terrified you again. Lately there was fear everywhere, new fears. Bokuto didn’t mind when you shook off his hand and left, though you did remember to thank him. You thought you saw Kuroo looking over at you, maybe at Bokuto, but you didn’t mind. Just went back to the house to take a shower before the games started back up again, so you could be alone.

Kuroo was there, after you got out of the shower. Words, words though - you didn’t have words. All the ways that words normally made sense between the two of you seemed to slip from your fingers and you couldn’t look at him. Not yet.

He reached out to touch you but pulled back, and you wondered if it was the memory of the night before when he’d gripped you too tight.

Not touching hurt worse, though. It was like the cord that connected you was fraying at the edges and it was all your fault.

You’d thought the two of you were simple, already figured out. It turned out you were only human after all. Humans were complicated.

Games were easy. No question about the rules. No question about moving with Kuroo on the court, or any of the other team members, if the third years let you play. Later you escaped again and no one found you.

The only person who could have found you was Kuroo, but this time he didn’t look.

It was quiet. 

Games were easier than people.

Games had rules. Games made sense. Games could be figured out.

Lay things out, breathe, examine things from all angles. Throw out the assumptions, look for the truth.

You love Kuroo. Always have. That love has changed, possibly, since you saw him with Bokuto. Has it changed for him? Has he always looked at you the way he did the night before, and you just never saw it, too busy watching everyone else?

Akaashi... Akaashi knows you, slipped into you like oxygen, just as easy. Is it love? You don’t know, but it twines together with your love for Kuuro, different but no less present. 

And then Bokuto, different from both of them but in a way that makes you want to fall into him. It’s easy and you love it and it’s terrifying because Kuroo and he -

But this wasn’t about anyone else but you. Not right now.

They’re all different, these desires, these attractions. None are less real than another, though.

Akaashi texts you. Asks you to come again to the gym. You could say no, you could ignore it.

You don’t.

They’re all three there when you get there. Bokuto is sitting with Akashi on the mats, holding his hand and talking. Kuroo is pacing the floor. The look he gives you when you come in says a million things and you don’t know them yet.

There are a million things about Kuroo you don’t know yet, and you thought for some crazy reason that you knew everything.

Millions more you don’t know about Bokuto and Akaashi, as well.

But you want to know.

A million little things yet to be discovered. Moments where you slide your fingers over Bokuto’s chest as you help button his shirt and tie his tie. Moments where Akaashi shows you a new stroke he learned in calligraphy. Moments where Kuroo tells you things about yourself you didn’t even know existed. Moments you want, where the threads that bind you to Kuroo and Akaashi to Bokuto get tangled and woven together into something that lasts.

There’s still fear.

There will probably always be the fear. Worry that these threads will somehow fray or break, that you’re pushing your desires onto the others. Shame for desires that comes so naturally to them but still stay locked up within yourself until they draw them out. 

Still, the little things stay, more numerous than the fears. 

The little things build the love, and the love will last for an eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this is messy/drabblish. I just love these babies, and Kenma lives in my head now so...


End file.
